Man inside Golden Knights’ mascot Chance loves his job
An hour before the puck drops to start the final home game of the Golden Knights’ inaugural season, a parade of about 30 begins its traditional pre-game march through the New York-New York’s casino, up Las Vegas Boulevard, through The Park and eventually into T-Mobile Arena.
There are cheerleaders, drummers, members of the ice crew and a Knight in medieval armor.
The star of the show, however, is Las Vegas’ newest celebrity reptile: a giant Gila monster named Chance.
For about 25 minutes, the Golden Knights’ mascot darts in and out of the procession, seeking out fist-bumps and high-fives. He prowls restaurant patios and bar windows for anyone who will lend him a phone to snap a selfie. He even coaxes smiles from tourists in the opposing team’s jerseys with dismayed shrugs, shakes of his oversized head, and even a playful lizard bite. In a city still learning the names and faces of its playoff-bound hockey players, Chance has emerged as the cartoonish face of our beloved new team.
The man behind the mask
When the parade is over, Chance retires to his dressing room in the recesses of T-Mobile Arena to await the start of the game. He’s accompanied by Ilana, the member of the Golden Aces who will serve as his handler for the evening. (Rowdy fans are apparently far nicer to beautiful cheerleaders than they are to traditional bulky security guards.) It’s only here, out of the view of fans and cameras, that Chance removes his disco ball-patterned head to reveal the human face of Clint McComb.
That head, if you were wondering, is lighter than one might expect. And a quick examination reveals that McComb’s line of sight from within (a thin slit of visibility through Chance’s mouth), has a reasonable horizontal range, but is incredibly narrow vertically. So it’s tough to see a puck on the ice, or just about anything below eye level, without a drastic downward nod. Yet somehow, Chance almost never misses a small child in the crowd who wants to say hello.
“If you can make a kid smile, that’s the best part,” McComb says when asked about his determination to interact with every child in Golden Knights garb.
And Chance makes plenty of kids — and their parents — smile. At the march, when he spots a youngster in a homemade Chance costume, he recruits him to wave the team flag. Later, during the game’s first period, a parent sitting near the ice hands him an infant, whom Chance poses with and pretends to give away to Ilana. It’s a move that always gets a laugh from the crowd.
A mascot is born
That’s just one of the moves McComb, 35, has developed during his 18 years as a mascot — first with the Arizona State Sun Devils, later with the Arizona Cardinals, and most recently for the NFL’s Rams, in both St. Louis and Los Angeles. It’s a career he fell into accidentally, while pursuing a degree in broadcast journalism at Arizona State, and preparing for a season on the gymnastics team.
“Literally the first day of gymnastics practice,” McComb recalls, “someone from the marketing department came into our gym and said ‘Hey, we are looking for someone who can tumble, and who’s athletic, and would be interested in trying out for our mascot. And we’re offering a scholarship.’ ”
Having turned down a wrestling scholarship to pursue gymnastics, the freshman jumped at the chance to save his parents the tuition. He landed the role of Sparky, the Sun Devils’ mascot, which brought him into the stadium the team shared with the NFL.
“One day the Cardinals’ mascot got hurt, and I got a phone call,” he says of his move to the pros.
That substitute performance led to a nine-year, part-time job with the team. Then in 2010, the St. Louis Rams brought him on board to help create a new mascot, Rampage, which he portrayed full time, moving to L.A. with the team in 2016.
From L.A. to Las Vegas
Last year, while still working as Rampage, McComb got a call from a former boss, Brian Killingsworth, now the Knights chief marketing officer, asking if he knew anyone who might want to portray a mascot they were creating for the inaugural season. During the conversation, he decided he was interested in the job.
He says he never hesitated about leaving a successful NFL franchise for an expansion hockey team that few expected to be competitive.
“I was more focused on the fact that this is the first professional team in Las Vegas,” he explains. “We were making history already.”
He was hired in the midst of the Rams’ season, and arrived in Las Vegas for his new job on Oct. 2. While the mascot’s basic look and backstory had been decided before he came on board, he helped fine-tune the costume, and even suggested the name Chance. McComb has been the only person to portray the Gila monster inside or outside of T-Mobile since the character was introduced at the team’s second home game on Oct. 13.
Heading into the playoffs, McComb is confident he made the right move.
“When I left the Rams, the last thing I said was I’m leaving a dream job for a golden opportunity. And now, after a full season, I’m in another dream job situation.”
Chance no instant favorite
Chance was introduced to Golden Knights fans at the second home game, on Oct. 13, because the team’s home opener was dedicated to honoring the victims of the Oct. 1 shooting. That evening, the team posted Chance’s photo on its Facebook page, with a link to a story on the team website explaining how the news of professional hockey in Las Vegas had persuaded Chance to leave his burrow at Red Rock Canyon, seek out the team at their practice facility, venture onto the ice and skate. To say he was not well-received is an understatement. Here are just a few comments.
■ “A monster is the mascot for the Golden Knights. You’re gonna have to take your first L of the season here apparently.” — Tim Hae-z
■ “It is like they all sat in a room and said we are not leaving until we come up with the most ridiculous mascot we can think of.” — Ricky Rick
■ “Is that Barneys cousin? Man, you guys have a book of bad ideas. Why not have the mascot be, you know…a knight. Or a dragon.” — Ryan Wasson
■ “This is the STUPIDEST idea anyone has ever had for a mascot, ever, in the history of everything, even collegiate sports. Someone should be fired, and MAKE THE MASCOT A GOLDEN KNIGHT. Not to mention his number is 1? Not 7? Or 777?” — Jacob Walsh
Clint McComb insists he wasn’t fazed by the negativity.
“Every mascot launch, people are going to pick it apart,” he says before reciting a list of pro sports mascots that were criticized at first. The criticism, after all, was from people who hadn’t met Chance.
“It was a lot of social media. … They saw what it was, and they made their comments. (But) in the stadium that night, I was taking a bunch of pictures. There were a lot of selfies. There were people high-fiving. There were no negative comments inside the stadium that night.”
Chance and the team responded to the criticism with humor. On Oct. 27, they posted a video online entitled “Chance Reads Mean Tweets.” In keeping with his character, the Gila monster was silent. He relied on players, children, team executives — even owner Bill Foley — to read the nastier Tweets about him as sad music played in the background.
“Having the players laugh along, and having the owners acknowledge it,” McComb says, “I think that was the thing that set the course in the right way.”
Judging by the number of fans who clamor for a selfie as Chance walks through the arena, the humor appears to have worked.
‘About the community’
Gloden Knights’ staffer Tyler Ferraro grabbed a megaphone to offer some inspiration to the pre-game parade squad. It was March 31, the evening of the team’s final home game of the regular season.
“With everything that happened Oct. 1, and our whole order of events, this season was never about hockey,” he told them solemnly. “It was always about the community. It was about the fans and the families of everyone involved.”
It was a reminder of the role the Golden Knights have played in the healing process of this city. And it was lost on no one — including Clint McComb, whose permanent relocation to Las Vegas was immediately after the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting.
“When I moved here, I flew in from getting my costume in Minneapolis on the 2nd,” he explains. “So I flew in that morning after the tragedy. And it was a different town than when I’d left.”
Chance the Gila monster hadn’t been introduced, but McComb was with his team.
“I did go along with the players and our community team that next day when we went to the blood drive. And we visited first responders and went to the convention center, which had some of the victims (there). And it was emotional. I still think about some of the reactions.”
Heroes of Oct. 1 have been honored at every Golden Knights home game. The team has also quietly reached out to many who suffered losses that day. On his arm, McComb wears a wristband given to Chance by a girl whose mother was killed.
“It’s faded,” he notes as he runs his fingers over it. “I have not taken it off since that day.”
Contact Al Mancini at amancini@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlManciniVegas on Twitter.
